


Projection and Person

by DustySoul



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Episode: s02e03 Projections, Gen, Reality Bending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-16 00:27:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9265676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DustySoul/pseuds/DustySoul
Summary: Because Voyager needs more hugs and cuddles, and the end of Projections seemed like the perfect place to make that happen.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm alive!
> 
> I've moved to working on original fiction with the hopes of getting published on day. But writing out these little ideas is still a great way to maintain my discipline and unwind. So here you go.

“Doctor, do you know who I am?”

He glances wildly about the room, almost unseeing. Her voice echoes through his mind. He is unable to catch his balance on her calm words.

“Do you know where you are?”

If he is breathing, it is with slow and deep breaths, meant to steady. “I appear to be on the holodeck grid.” He looks to her for confirmation. This could still be another false awakening. And, even if this is reality, he is not sure he can even remember what that is meant to entail.

“That’s right.” The captain confirms. “And do you know what you are?”

He opens his mouth to respond, “Yes… I am…” Being a breathing, beating, _living_ being felt no different from being a hologram. If it had not been for the tricorder readings he would have never known the difference. “I am…” He tries to remember. He is _not_ Zimmerman. But he is not just the Emergency Medical Holographic Program either. He hasn’t been for a long time.

Janeway is holding is fore arms. “You are?” She prompts.

He fidgets, rolls his neck, and says, “I am The Doctor. _Voyager's_ doctor, the Chief Medical Officer.”

She bows her head, closes her eyes.

“And what is your name?” Chakotay steps closer as the captain’s hands slide off his arms and she steps back.

“My name?”

“Yes.”

He fidgets again, glancing around the hologrid. “I believe… I do not... have one.”

“And why is that?”

“Well… it is… it is… because… I have not chosen one. Yet.”

“Doctor.” Chakotay touches him now. “Do you know _what_ you are? What life form?”

“I…” He thinks, but can not keep the events of the… the holoprogram straight. He could still be _in_ the holoprogram. He could be dead or dying. If he was really Zimmerman and had HTDS, and was dying of radiation poisoning, then it would make sense that this… this crew, would be what he would see. That his dying brain would seek to resolve the conflict presented over the past several hours so that he may be at peace.

“No.” He admits, “I do not know… which… what’s real.”

 

“Doctor. Doctor.” Chakotay is shaking him. It takes him a moment to realize that he is on the floor. Chakotay is kneeling next to him, Janeway standing above him, concern knitted across her face.

“What… what happened?” He presses a hand to his head. It _hurts._

Chakotay and Janeway share glances, negotiating who is going to speak. They agree on Chakotay and the doctor can not look away from his face.

“We don’t know.” Chakotay looks to Kim. “We… we can’t find any errors in your program. But um… we’ve called Kes. She may be able to help.”

“Kes?”

“Yes, do you remember Kes?”

“I… Is… Is she my assistant?”

“Yes, she is.”

“Just my assistant?”

“Yes?”

“She… she…”

“Maybe I should tell her to wait.” Janeway says, posed over her comm.

“Yes. I think that might be best. Tell her not to come in until we give her the all clear.” Chakotay agrees with Janeway. “Doctor, we need you to calm down.”

He tries to take deep breathes, “ _How?”_

Chakotay runs his hands across the doctor’s shoulders and arms, “We’re all right here, alright, every things going to be okay. How do you feel.”

“My head hurts.” He almost shouts, “And… and I am off balance.”

Janeway quietly relays this to Kes.

Chakotay shhes him. “It’s aright. You’re going to be just fine.”

Kim, who had been working on his PADD looks to Janeway and whispers, “Areas of the program have become incredibly complex. Since it has first been activated it has been changing and growing, which is what we would expect. But there is a whole area here… It is much larger and complex than our simulations would suggest it should be.

“And this, this bit of code… it keeps repeating, and intertwining in other areas. I don’t think it’s possible to edit it in anyway without further harming the doctor.

“If I may… speculate. For a moment. I think it may be temporary. The program is rewriting itself as we speak. It’s much slower than what we observed while the holoprogram was active.”

Janeway nods. “Do you think the code is… malfunctioning. Or malicious?”

“I… I really can’t say. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

Chakotay speaks again, “How do you feel, about seeing Kes?”

It draws his attention from the conversation between Kim and Janeway, and from his own, exhausted introspection. “Worried.”

“Why?”

He searches for the words and shakes his head.

“You can tell me.” Chakotay says, he pulls the doctor closer, almost into his lap.

“Is the program, the holoprogram, really over?”

“Yes.” Chakotay says.

“Then why do I feel pain?”

“We do not know. That’s what we’re hoping Kes can help us with.”

“She was my wife, in the program.”

Chakotay can’t stifle a chuckle.

“It was very upsetting.”

“I can assure you, doctor, that Kes is _not_ your wife. She is only your assistant.”

“Oh… Good.”

“I’m going to tell her to come in now, is that alright?”

“Yes.”

He taps his badge, “Kes, we’re ready for you.”

The door to the holodeck opens and she rushes in, med kit in hand. “Oh Doctor!” She exclaims, falling to the floor next to them. “I was so worried about you when I heard.”

“What happened?” He asks, remembering his… well not remembering his fall to the ground, but remembering that he _was_ standing.

“It sounded like you had a seizure.”

“A what?!”

He tries to pull away from Chakotay, to stand, but doesn’t have the strength.

“A seizure, clonic, it sounds like.”

“Followed by disruption and distortion of your projection.” Kim adds.

“ _Both_ things should not be possible.”

Chakotay pulls him closer as Kes runs the medical tricorder up and down his body. He rests his head on Chakotay’s shoulder.

“Remember what we said about staying calm.”

“I… well yes, but.”

“It is,” Kes agrees, “Very important that you stay calm. We think that you’re emotional volatility might have caused this… episode.”

He ignores the comment about emotional outbursts and instead says to Kes, “Can I see those readings.”

She shows him the tricorder.

A heart beat, but it is inconsistent and nonsensical. Unable to detect bpm. No blood pressure. No neural activity.

He sighs, “What am I?” He asks.

“A program.” Kes says, “But a very unusual one.”

“Doctor,” Chakotay says, “You do know, that to us, it does not matter if you are a human or a program. What matters, is that you are you.”

He closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath.

“Much of the repeating code has been deleted.” Kim whispers.

“How do you feel?” Kes asks.

He crakes an eye open to look at her.

“Do you still have a head ache?” She clarifies. “How’s your sense of coordination? Do you feel confused.”

“No head ache, my coordination is better. And… I am confused but... it’s getting better. My processing is… faster.”

“My readings agree.” Kim says.

“Well then Doctor, if you’re ready, we can send you back to sick bay, or end your program.”

He closes his eyes again, focuses on the feeling of being in Chakotay’s arms, surrounded by his caring crew. He reflects on what Kes had said about _emotions._ “I am ready. Computer, end Emergency Holographic Program.”


End file.
